As their time on the Worldwide Area Station winds down, the Expedition 73 crew continued science and upkeep actions whereas additionally getting ready for the arrival of the crewmates who will take their place.
Orbital remark
Anne McClain was not planning to take any pictures.
The Expedition 73 flight engineer and NASA astronaut had taken a second to herself within the house station’s Cupola when she felt compelled to seize the auroral glow out the window.
“As we get near leaving the International Space Station, I discover myself eager to savor each second and each view. None of us are assured to get to do that once more, and each minute spent in house is a particular one,” McClain wrote on social media.
“I dropped into the Cupola to look out the window and simply be within the second, not taking photographs or on the lookout for something particularly. Properly, when this view introduced itself, I modified my thoughts … I needed to choose up a digicam to share this with all of you. Wow!” she wrote.
Science standing
Among the many analysis that was carried out by the Expedition 73 crew aboard the house station this week was:
CIMON — Expedition 73 commander Takuya Onishi set two robots free to play disguise and search in an indication of future AI-powered crew assistants. CIMON, or the Crew Interactive MObile companioN, took management of a free-flying digicam to go looking out gadgets that have been hidden all through the Kibo laboratory module.
Muscle Stimulation — Astronauts on the house station train every single day to guard towards bone and muscle loss. Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers this week continued assessments of a potential various countermeasure to muscular atrophy. McClain connected electrodes and despatched electrical impulses into Ayers’ leg muscle groups.
Drain Mind 2.0 — In a separate examine, Ayers additionally wore electrodes on her stomach and shoulders to measure how blood flows from her coronary heart to her mind in microgravity. She additionally wore a coronary heart monitor whereas exercising utilizing a treadmill and a resistive gadget.
Cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov spent a while assessing new freeze-dried meals packs, whereas Alexey Zubritsky and Kirill Peskov examined a swimsuit that may measure the vibrations generated aboard the house station whereas operating on a treadmill.
Station preserving
A lot of the Expedition 73 crew’s time devoted this week to sustaining the house station’s methods targeted on the upcoming arrival of SpaceX‘s Crew-11 astronauts and cosmonauts and the departure of the Crew-10 members.
Seats set-up — Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, two of the home-bound crewmates, helped fellow NASA astronaut Jonny Kim re-install the crew chairs aboard the Dragon spacecraft that can quickly depart. In addition they stowed emergency tools contained in the capsule.
Staging provides — Kim labored on gathering the gadgets the incoming new crew will initially want aboard the house station.
Sleep stations — McClain, Ayers, and Onishi cleaned out the air ducts main into their crew quarters within the Concord module. McClain then configured a short lived sleeping bag inside her Dragon trip residence whereas Ayers outfitted an additional sleep station within the European Columbus laboratory. These additional “bunks” might be used throughout the handover interval between the brand new and outgoing crew members.
Astronaut exercise
On Monday (July 28), Expedition 73 flight engineer Jonny Kim of NASA was interviewed dwell by the individuals within the U.S. Air Pressure Analysis Laboratory Students Program at Eglin Air Pressure Base in Florida.
“Area has been a humbling atmosphere in so many alternative methods,” stated Kim, starting a reply to a query about how his expertise as a flight surgeon may need arrange false assumptions about what he has now skilled in house. “Having a background in medication, relationship again to my early days as a fight medic on the SEAL groups to later being a doctor, was having an understanding of how our our bodies work, the human physiology.”
“We have advanced over an extended time frame to make use of gravity. We rely on gravity for our circulatory system [and] our muscular-skeletal system, so once we go into house, numerous these issues change,” he stated. “In order that foundation in physiology has helped me admire why we do countermeasures … why now we have to go on a motorcycle or run each single day or elevate weights for an hour and a half, it’s to counteract numerous the — by way of terra firma — maladapted adjustments.”
By the numbers
As of Friday (Aug. 1), there are 7 folks aboard the Worldwide Area Station: Expedition 73 commander Takuya Onishi of JAXA, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers and Jonny Kim of NASA and Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky of Roscosmos, all flight engineers.
There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX’s Dragon “Endurance” connected to the ahead port of the Concord module and Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 connected to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.
There are two docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progress MS-30 (91P) connected to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, and Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module.
As of Friday, the house station has been repeatedly crewed for 24 years and 9 months.